The effort to stop honking around the secretariat has not seen an implementation as yet. There aren’t any visible efforts to give material form to the declarations. So, honking is going on.
On Jan 25 last, drive to reduce noise pollution was carried out.
Reportedly, there are only three executive magistrates to run the drives of the Department of Environment (DoE). Of them, only two run drives while the other is for Chattogram division, who is currently on maternity leave.
Therefore, only two magistrates are being used to carry out drives to tackle air and noise pollution.
Executive Magistrate Kazi Tamzid Ahmed says: “We stopped the drives due to election and will start soon; to carry out a drive, a five member supporting team is needed, along with a high official of the DoE as an observer.”
Meanwhile, an official of the DoE said: “In addition to carrying out drives, we must have a monitoring team for post drive monitoring.”
Deputy Director of the DoE, Abdullah Al Mamun said: “As per high court directive, we are now carrying out drives at the brick kilns.”
The DoE has a lot of work now and we need a manpower of around 2,000 people now but have only 600 all over the country, he added.
“We are carrying out drives against polythene, black smoke and air pollution and carried out a drive in Gazipur on Wednesday.”